Bruce Paddock was living without permission in a San Fernando Valley home in 2014 when his friend Hector Cruz, the owner, accused him of tampering with machinery, the records filed in Los Angeles show.

When Cruz confronted him, Paddock allegedly said, “If you keep f------ with me, I am going to kill you and drop you in the desert.”

The 57-year-old Paddock also told Cruz, “Hit me like a man,” and punched his antagonist in one arm.

“I am extremely afraid of Paddock, who has intimidated me by his violent character and destruction of my business office and my service bay,” he said in court papers, according to the website.

Stephen Paddock, 64, built a sniper’s nest in a room on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the Las Vegas strip Sunday night and rained bullets on more than 22,000 people at an outdoor country music concert.

(John Raoux/AP)

Cruz told the Daily News and said in court papers that Paddock liked to get high and sold methamphetamine and marijuana. His behavior is “extremely erratic and unpredictable,” Cruz claimed.

He also told The News that Bruce Paddock was filled with paranoia and installed hidden cameras in the house and work area, as well as in his car.

“He said he had stuff to make explosives,” Cruz said. “He’s just a crazy guy. He was getting money from his mother and leaching off the government. He was extremely intelligent, but he was just trash.”

In a chilling coincidence, Stephen Paddock possessed explosives in his house and car. He also installed hidden cameras in the hallway and the hotel room he used as a sniper’s nest Sunday in the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

Cruz said he knew of Stephen Paddock but said he never met him. The brothers’ father was a bank robber who made the FBI’s 10 most-wanted list in the 1960s.